With the advent of digital photography it is now common for people to produce digital images and digital video with small hand-held cameras, with camera systems attached to or built into computers and with camera systems built into mobile phones. There are also many millions of images and videos available for free download and for purchased download via the internet. These produced and downloaded images and videos are stored as digital files on storage media such as compact flash cards and on portable media such as optical disks and portable USB drives using solid-state flash memory. The produced and downloaded images and videos are also stored on portable disk drives and on computer disk drives. Digital files can be copied to new storage devices easily and transferred to different devices using portable or removable media and can also be sent electronically via electronic networks using computers, portable digital assistants and mobile phones. Devices which can decode the digital files can output the images and video on a display screen or can print images and video frames on paper or other print media. There are many options, devices and technologies available for capturing, storing, moving, viewing and outputting digital pictures and video.
With relatively cheap digital cameras available there has been an explosive growth in the amount of digital images and videos produced and shared by amateurs. This means that people often have large sets of images and videos and there is a need for people to be able to easily view and select items from sets of multiple items. One problem with conventional technologies for file viewing technology is that motion video files are displayed as single items, usually as a filename and/or a thumbnail image in a list of items. As such, a particular image from a certain time, perhaps in the middle of the video, is not accessible as a selectable item. Further, displaying the motion video file as a single item in a list means that time dimension is not represented.
However, for some tasks a user may need to select one or more static frames from within a series of frames forming a video sequence. A user who wishes to select a set of certain frames from within a motion video file for a purpose (e.g., to make a printed photograph), has to extract the frames using more complicated technologies and methods. Usually the user must play the video to access the time dimension of the motion video file, in order to select a frame.
One known method of extracting frames from motion video involves playing a motion video file in a software program and issuing an instruction to create a still image from a chosen frame. In this instance, a new still image file (e.g., a JPEG image file) is created and can be saved to a storage medium. While this may be acceptably difficult on a complex device like a home computer, the problem becomes more difficult on devices with more simple input and output devices, such as mobile telephones, personal data assistants (PDAs) and the like. The task of selecting the correct frame involves careful playback control by the operator which may interrupt the normal video viewing process because the operator has to slow the playback speed to select the exact frame. The still image produced by the instruction to create a new image file cannot be adjusted if the user has erroneously selected a frame just before or just after the ideal still image.
Thus, a need clearly exists for a more efficient and easier method of selecting frames from a motion video.